In addition to video backgrounds on the web, Google is rolling out the ability to change your background in Meet for Android today. This feature is initially limited to pre-selected defaults and first came to desktops last October.

Over the years, Chrome has been a big proponent of increasing HTTPS adoption to improve privacy and security on the web. The latest Chrome steps include rolling out an HTTPS-First Mode and experimenting with a replacement for the lock icon in the address bar.

There are many ways to enter emoji and other expressive media, with most messaging apps offering their own experience. Google Messages is now redesigning its emoji and GIF picker while simplifying entry.

In light of COVID-19 driving all communication online, free Google Meet users with personal Gmail accounts could take advantage of group calls without a duration limit over the past year. That benefit ended at the start of this month and Google has detailed the new limitation.

Announced last month alongside Workspace becoming available “for everyone” (i.e., free personal accounts), Google said today that its “Individual” tier is now available in five countries for those with a small business or other “passion project.”

To improve user trust in emails, the industry created the Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) standard. Gmail will start rolling out the resulting verified company logos over the coming weeks.

At the start of this year, Google announced that it was revamping its desktop client strategy for Drive. The new “Google Drive for desktop” that replaces “Backup and Sync” by adding automatic Google Photos upload is now appearing for some users. 

Google is rolling out a redesign of the dedicated Lens app on Android that greatly de-emphasizes the live viewfinder. Rather, the focus is now on analyzing existing images and screenshots in your camera roll. 

For the past year or so, Google has primarily focused on catering towards the enterprise video calling market to beat Zoom. Google Meet is now making a push for personal users with a set of fun effects, like filters and masks.

In addition to a new Nest/Google Wifi update, the Google Home app is getting the last few remaining Wifi-related features from the old client that’s set to be deprecated.

In March, Google Maps AR navigation was updated to work inside complex buildings. After launching in some US malls, Google is expanding Indoor Live View to transit stations in Japan. 

Google is readying a major overhaul of its smartwatch platform and provided an emulator “preview” of the underlying UI changes at I/O 2021. A Wear OS 3.0 redesign of the on-wearable Google Play Store is now beginning to roll out.

Lens will only become more important going forward, but Google’s challenge in the meantime is raising awareness about its extensive set of capabilities. Some tweaks to Google Lens now aim to simplify how visual search works.

The YouTube video layout on the web has remained relatively the same in recent years, but Google is now testing a web redesign of the description section that is more compact and puts greater emphasis on comments.

In the transition to Meet, Google got rid of “Hangouts on Air,” or the ability to livestream video calls directly to YouTube for anybody to view. That feature is coming back, starting for education customers this year, but until then, Google is extending who can see internal Meet livestreams.

Back in April, Google started rolling out a redesign of the Discover feed available to the left of most Android homescreens. After first going live for phones running Android 12, Google is now bringing the “more streamlined” Discover to older devices.

If somebody sends you an important text/chat, your natural inclination today on how to save it is most likely screenshotting. Google wants to replace that behavior with the new built-in ability to star in Messages for Android.

SMS is widely regarded as an insecure form of two-factor authentication, and another example of this has just emerged. A carrier looks to be injecting ads into the Google verification code used to sign in to services like Gmail.

Google today announced the latest set of policy changes to limit extensions abuse and improve security of the Chrome Web Store. This includes requiring 2FA for Chrome Web Store developers and cracking down on deceptive installations.

Google introduced the Android App Bundle format in May of 2018 at I/O as part of its modern development push. The AAB standard will become the default for new applications published to the Play Store this August. 

After announcing a handful of new education features just last week, Google is updating the privacy and security defaults for students using Chrome, as well as accounts and other apps, managed by schools.